If a policy is in crisis, hand it to the Post Office — or the Girl Guides Well I never. You think the government has taken its eye off the ball. You think they’ve got nothing to do except rear up in the Daily Mail to tell us how lucky we all are, or pen
At a dinner party in central London a few months ago, David Davis made an extraordinary confession. He had become disenchanted with David Cameron, he said, and was considering quitting politics. ‘I believe in certain things,’ he claimed, ‘and I do not believe the next Conservative government will implement them.’ He wondered if he should
It’s all too easy to leave Top Secret papers lying around — I should know News last week that police are investigating a ‘serious’ security breach after a civil servant lost top-secret documents containing the latest intelligence on al-Qa’eda sent a shiver of alarmed reminiscence down my spine. The unnamed Cabinet Office employee apparently breached
Gordon Brown’s moral compass is more like a dodgy satnav I often miss the glaring messages in fiction, because I am a prosaic and feeble-minded moron. Take Lyra and her altheiometer, in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights trilogy. I read it ages ago, and it only clicked the other day. It’s basically a science-powered moral compass,
It’s a funny old thing, the Labour party. For ten years it tolerated Tony Blair, hoping that if it put up with him long enough, it would get the leader it really wanted. Naturally, it also assumed that this would entail having the best bits of Mr Blair (winning) without the war-mongering, populist, slippery, free-market
There are no ‘good’ teachers: the teacher who is good for you may wreck another’s prospects The funny thing is that I’m not sure I ever knew her Christian name. No doubt she had one, and for no reason at all I think it might have been Jean, but to us she was so much,
Every Sunday night for the past couple of months, I have been going back in time. I have been in the early 1960s. Sharp suits, womanly curves, and hair that went one way or went the other, and damn well left a line if it changed its mind. I’ve been watching the drama Mad Men
‘I’ll tell you, Janet, if I was 23 an’ ’ad a nice, good-lookin’ young man, I’d not be here on ’oliday with you. Don’t get me wrong — it’s been a lovely holiday — but let’s be honest. If I was your age and ’ad the chance, I’d be walkin’ along the beach, alone with
If Scotland is to be independent, then why not London? And good luck to what’s left Here is a fun game for you. In only four words, try to sum up why anybody north of the border might fancy independence. Have a think. Something to rival the neat ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ quip of the
‘You have reminded me, Mr Speaker, that for a minister resigning, permission to make a Personal Statement to the House is granted entirely at your discretion and should be of an explanatory nature. With the speech of the Noble Lord, Lord Howe, in mind, I too will keep mine short: to a thousand words. Members
Gordon can barely speak English either, so why don’t we swap him for Sarkozy? Say what you like about Nicolas Sarkozy, but he’s a feisty little tyke, isn’t he? Apparently, he put himself through an hour-long grilling on French TV last week. We’ve got our issues with the strange angry man in Downing Street, but
My heart bleeds for cold-callers — it must be the most depressing job in the world It’s always happening. It happened again last Friday. I had finished my Times column for Saturday and, taking advantage of the two hours left of daylight, fetched the wheelbarrow, pick and spade and set to work finishing the construction
Political wisdom coming from Robert Mugabe is hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I think the leathery old butcher might be on to something. ‘Gordon Brown,’ he said last week, ‘is a tiny dot on this world.’ From some people, that might be mere insult. Yet, when foul Bob describes Gordon Brown as a dot on the
Boris must bore for Britain till he wins — and then shine like Tennyson’s dragonfly Boris Johnson is doing as well as I hoped and better than I expected. On this page at the beginning of August last year I was presumptuous enough to offer some advice for the man who looked certain to be
Nick Clegg’s sex confession shows why politicians should never try to look normal It was the 14 pints, I always thought, that ultimately did it for William Hague. That was the beginning of the end. There must have been teenagers out there in the 1970s who did, indeed, drink 14 pints a day. It’s just
Rather less than two years ago, bored and with time to kill at a Conservative party conference, I decided to do what is for a British journalist a rather unusual thing. I decided to read a whole speech, a long speech by a politician, a speech with no particular news value. I decided to read
James Forsyth reviews the week in politics What a difference a poll lead makes. If Philip Hammond, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, had given an interview appearing to rule out tax cuts in a Conservative first term, when the Tories were behind in the polls or only marginally ahead, there would have been
It is probably blasphemy, or sacrilege, or at least very rude, but whenever I see the Dalai Lama, I think of him as speaking in the voice of the late Mike Reid, who played Frank Butcher on EastEnders. It must be the tinted specs. ‘Look, me old China,’ he croaks, pinching at the bridge of
Do you reckon they told all the royals? Seriously? All of them? Even the flaky minor ones, like Fergie? Or has she been gossiping with the Countess of Wessex and the bafflingly female Princess Michael of Kent, these past three months, wondering where Harry was, and whether this time he’d done something really bad? ‘Has
The truth about the Auschwitz ‘gimmick’ row is that Labour exploited Jewish sensitivities David Cameron, said the Times last Saturday, ‘was facing intense political criticism last night after including student “trips to Auschwitz” on a list of government gimmicks.’ The Daily Mail was more shrill: ‘Pressure was piling on David Cameron last night to apologise,’